Watch Out

by Alison Hughes

  “I really doubt that, Gary.”

  I tried hard not to find all this drama kind of sad. And annoying. But I was curious. He obviously had something. Or thought he had. What if he’d actually stumbled upon a clue? Some actual evidence?

  “Well, pull up a chair,” I said sarcastically. He had already collapsed into a chair and dumped his bag down on the floor. I sat across from him on the couch.

  “Is Dave around? Maybe I can talk to him.”

  “Nope. It’ll have to be me,” I said briskly. I was determined to keep this short and sweet. “So what’s this proof you have?”

  He leaned back in his chair and wiped his forehead with that putrid handkerchief again. “You got a glass of water?”

  I ground my teeth and went to get him a glass of water. Everybody’s servant—that was me.

  But as I handed him the glass, a strange thing happened.

  “Thanks, kid,” he said to his shoes.

  I glanced down at his shoes. They were dirty. My first thought was, I hope he doesn’t stain the carpet with those dirty shoes.

  Those shoes…those shoes were familiar. I looked closer.

  And then something in my mind clicked. The shoes I was looking at, the ones on Gary’s feet, were black. Black shoes. But on the left one, there was a splash of white paint on the toe. I saw it clear as day.

  As clear as the day I had seen it in the beam of a flashlight. A flashlight inside that house the night Tom and I had played Spy. The night Gary and I had chased the thief.

  That was the niggling thing I’d noticed. The thing that had been bugging me. It was seeing that black shoe with the splash of white paint. Spotlighted in that house by the flashlight. Neighborhood break-in number seven. Or eight. I couldn’t remember.

  I hadn’t thought the shoe was important at the time, but it was.

  Lots of people have black shoes, I argued with myself. Many people paint things. But I knew I was right. It was the same shoe. The same paint splash, one that looked like a big comma. It was a clue. It was the shoe of the thief. The shoe of Gary. Gary’s shoe.

  Gary, who had told me to back off investigating the break-ins because things might get dangerous.

  Gary, who was sitting right here. Alone with me. Tom was upstairs, asleep. Even if he wasn’t, what could he do? Throw a crutch?

  My mouth got dry. My heart started to pound.

  Suddenly, Gary looked straight at me. Not at the carpet, not at the couch, right at me. Right into my eyes. The bumbling, sickly mail guy was gone. The pale blue eyes were alert. Intelligent. Amused. Dancing. A giant smile spread over his face, showing crooked, yellowish teeth.

  “So tell me, kid,” he said, “was it you with the whistle?”

  My blood ran cold. I hadn’t told him how I had scared off the thief. The only way he could have known about the whistle was if he was the other person who’d heard it. The only other person in the house. The guy upstairs, trying to steal Tom’s stuff.

  At that moment I knew for certain that he was the thief. And as we looked at each other, I knew that he knew that I knew.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” He chuckled. “Not bad, not bad. Rattled me, I admit. A whistle has a cop feel to it somehow. Man, I slid down that banister quick, like a ten-year-old! I wish you could’ve seen me. Just a shame I couldn’t finish the job. That’s some choice stuff your brother has up there. Would have been a big haul.”

  “So it was you,” I croaked.

  Gary laughed then, throwing back his hair with a flip of his tiny head.

  “He finally gets it! Give the boy a prize! Took you long enough. Ah, you should’ve seen your face just now!” He laughed delightedly and wagged a finger at me. “You were all supposed to be out. You and your mom and your brother all went out. I saw you. And that loser uncle of yours left just after that.”

  A flame of anger shot through me. Don’t call my uncle a loser. At least he’s not a little rat of a thief like you. And how dare you spy on my family, track our movements and break into our house?

  “I came back early.”

  “Exactly. You came back early. Big mistake.”

  He was clearly enjoying this so much. Having the time of his life.

  “Not really,” I said. “Got rid of you, didn’t I?”

  Gary’s smile faded. “Admit it. When you heard me upstairs, you were scared stiff. Just admit it. That must have been nerve-racking, hey? Was it?”

  I wasn’t going to give him the sick satisfaction of agreeing with him. He knew. He just had some twisted need to hear me say it.

  “You think you’re so smart, kid,” he sneered when I refused to answer. “You’re smug, you know that? You’re just a sniveling little loser like your uncle. I’ll tell you who’s smarter than you. Me, that’s who! I’ve been stealing stuff for months. All over the city! Never got caught, not even close. Cops don’t have a goddamn clue.”

  He watched my face. He settled back in his chair, stretching out his legs. Like he owned the place.

  “And then you came along. Little Charlie. What are you, twelve, thirteen?”

  “Fifteen,” I said. Seriously? Twelve? Even in the midst of stress and panic, I was offended.

  “Really? You look way younger. Anyway, you come along, thinking you’ll do some detecting. Thinking you know better than the cops even. Don’t make me laugh. You literally ran into a thief the night I came flying out of that house. You didn’t suspect me for a second, did you? I did a good job there, didn’t I? Improvised on the spot! Did you see him, did you get him?” Gary mimicked the panicky questions he had fired at me that night. “When it was me all along! I should be an actor, that’s what I should be. Pulled that one off like a total pro. I just about died laughing seeing you sprint down that alley to catch the imaginary thief! I had to fake a coughing fit to cover laughing my ass off.”

  He laughed again. His laugh sounded like a horse whinnying. It was seriously irritating.

  “Ahhh, good times,” he said, clearly not done talking yet. He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. “Don’t you have anything to say, kid? Nothing?”

  I shook my head. He seemed disappointed.

  “Come on, don’t be a bad sport! You got outsmarted. Humiliated even. Deal with it.” Gary shrugged his shoulders and started laughing again.

  My lack of response seemed to annoy him. He stopped laughing. He tilted his head and looked at me for a minute. Those watery eyes were sharp. Alive. Angry. And let me tell you, serious Gary was way scarier than laughing Gary.

  He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He pushed his face near mine.

  “I’ve never liked you, kid. Never. Always answering the door with that bored face. Always making such a big show of being so nice to poor Gary. Such a loser, that Gary. Poor, stupid, boring, sick, pathetic Gary. That’s what you thought, don’t deny it. Well, let me tell you, I ain’t poor now. I’m rolling in cash. I cleared $7,000 this month alone! Who’s the loser now, Charlie?”

  My turn to stare him down.

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because I want to. It’s just so sweet telling you all about it! I’ve been so smart that I need somebody to know about it! That’s half the fun. Half the fun,” he repeated, leaning back in his chair.

  You’re still pathetic, Gary. You may not think so, but you are.

  “I also like the actual stealing,” he said. Like we were having some kind of normal conversation. Talking about what kind of ice cream we liked. “Stealing’s a huge thrill. Not just regular shoplifting. Done that, but where’s the fun in it? It’s over so quick. Houses. That’s what I like. Wandering around other people’s houses, seeing what they got, imagining them freaking out when they find that things are missing. It’s power. And I’m getting good at it, so damn good at it. I got it down to a science. You know, I even hit a house twice. Twice! After they’d replaced the stuff I stole the first time! Suckers.”

  I was starting to shake. This whole thing seemed like a very bad dr
eam. The kind of dream you have where people you know are strangers. This was a stranger sitting in front of me. This was no skinny, sad mail carrier. This was a criminal, through and through. A warped, angry and bitter person. One who got his kicks from robbing other people.

  “So what’s to stop me from going to the police?” The question just slipped out of me. Had I really thought about it, I might not have asked it. I hoped the answer wouldn’t be him pulling a gun on me.

  He seemed delighted by the question.

  “I was hoping you’d ask that!” He laughed, throwing his hands up in the air. “And the answer is: nothing! Go tell the cops every last word. See? That’s the beauty of it. You can’t touch me even if you talked! You’ve got no proof.”

  He didn’t know I’d seen his shoe that night. Was that proof? Was it enough?

  “You’ve got a story nobody in their right mind would believe,” he continued. “Gary? The thief? That runty little mailman with the sniveling cold? Don’t make me laugh. Even if the cops checked out my place, they wouldn’t find anything. Like I’d keep anything there. No, Charlie, everyone would assume you’re some pathetic loser kid trying to get his name in the papers.”

  He was right. He was absolutely right, and he knew it. He looked at me with a kind of laughing pity. Gary, pitying me.

  “So now you’re going to know it’s me and keep knowing it’s me when you hear about more break-ins,” he said. “Just watch me. Track my career. You’ve got lots of time. You’re just a kid. You think you’re so smart, but you’re just a kid. And remember, nobody would believe you. Your own mother wouldn’t believe you. Nobody!”

  “I’d believe him,” said a loud voice from somewhere down the hall.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Uncle Dave!” I had never, ever been so glad to see anybody in my whole life. Ever.

  Gary leaped to his feet.

  “Charlie and I were just having a little chat,” he muttered as he slipped his bag over his shoulder. He was back to being stumbling, pathetic Gary. He even took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. But the eyes looking at Uncle Dave were very sharp.

  “How much did you hear?” I asked Uncle Dave. “Did you hear him admit that he’s the thief? That he’s the one doing the break-ins? He bragged about it.” I wished my voice didn’t sound so shaky and shrill.

  Gary looked completely confused and innocent. “What are you talking about?” He turned back to Uncle Dave. “The kid’s crazy. Watching too much Sherlock. Get a life.”

  “Get the hell out of here. Now!” snarled Uncle Dave. He lunged at Gary. Uncle Dave was way bigger than him, but Gary moved lightning quick. He slithered over the back of the couch, yanked open the door and sprinted down the walkway.

  I heard him laughing that whinnying laugh as he ran.

  “He’s getting away, he’s getting away!” I screamed. “We have to go after him!”

  “No way, Charlie. I think we’ll leave that to the police.” Uncle Dave locked the front door and collapsed into the chair Gary had been sitting in moments before. “We’d never catch him anyway.” He was smiling.

  “Are you kidding? We have to do something! He just confessed everything to me! Everything! He’s the thief, Uncle Dave. Do you understand? You believe me, don’t you? Gary is the thief. Oh man, is he actually going to get away with this?”

  “Nope,” Uncle Dave said calmly. He took a little silver box out of his pocket and held it up for me to see.

  “What the—what is that?”

  “Tape recorder. Old school. Five bucks at a garage sale. I use it to record band practice, so I can see how I sound. If I’m improving.”

  “Um, well, congrats. Neat gadget. Look, have you even been listening to a word I’ve said?”

  “Of course I have!” Uncle Dave sounded hurt. “I came in the back door, like, ten minutes ago. Slipped in while that little weasel was laughing his head off. I’ve been following him since yesterday, when I saw him going into the pawnshop a few doors down from the thrift shop. He was carrying a big, heavy bag.”

  I looked at Uncle Dave with new respect.

  “Did you go in, talk to the—”

  “Of course I did. Just chatted up the owner of the pawnshop while I looked around at the music equipment. Told him I recognized the guy that just left. Turns out he’s a very regular customer.”

  “Well, that’s great, Uncle Dave.” I was trying to be kind. But the owner of a pawnshop might not be the best witness we could’ve hoped for. “I guess we have to take his word for some of it.”

  “But that’s just it, Charlie! Once I thought about it, Gary seemed more and more likely to be our guy. He knows the neighborhood. He is always around. He knows individual houses. He probably delivers half the stuff he steals! And when I saw him coming into our house as I was walking home from practice, I didn’t know what he was up to. But I knew it wasn’t good.”

  Understatement of the year.

  “No, it wasn’t good, Uncle Dave.” I said. Suddenly I felt very tired.

  “Anyway, now we have Gary’s word for everything!” said Uncle Dave, laughing.

  I must have looked confused. He pointed at his recorder.

  “Uncle Dave,” I whispered, “did you actually—”

  “Yep. I heard him bragging about the break-ins, so I snuck down the hall and recorded your conversation! He incriminated himself pretty good, I’d say. You did an awesome job of stringing him along, Charlie, making him talk!”

  So being scared and silent was good for something.

  “Heh-heh, yeah. I sure let him talk.”

  Uncle Dave pressed a button on the little machine. There was a whirring sound. He pressed another button. Gary’s mocking voice floated into the room as clear as day: “Man I slid down that banister quick, like a ten-year-old.”

  “Yep, got the whole thing.”

  We grinned at each other.

  “High five, Uncle Dave,” I said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Wow, that little shit,” said Tom that night as we lay in our room in the dark. “Had us all fooled. Well, almost all of us.”

  “Not Uncle Dave,” I said. I was still impressed with him.

  “Well, right, but I was talking about you! You spotted the shoe. You knew he was the thief before he even opened his mouth. Didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said truthfully. “Yeah, I guess I did. Everything just clicked into place when I saw that shoe.”

  Uncle Dave and I had run upstairs and played the conversation for Tom (who was choked to have missed all the action). Then we called the police. They came to the house a little while later, and I wrote out a statement. Don’t mean to brag, and I know it’s pretty cool, but that’s what I did. The police seemed interested. Very interested.

  So did Mom. She didn’t freak at all. She thought it was all pretty logical—a sad, frustrated person trying to get a bit of power and excitement in his life. She was just glad nobody got hurt.

  The police called later to say Gary had been “apprehended.” It still seems weird to think about Gary as this master thief, as a person who might be heading to jail.

  A reporter from the city newspaper also came by to interview me and Uncle Dave. He said he was going to call the story “Neighborhood Watchdogs Catch a Thief.” Which is a pretty catchy title, I think.

  “What a weird few days,” Tom said.

  “Yeah.” I yawned. I had to go back to school this week. But the thought of that didn’t rattle me as much as it had before. I felt calmer about everything. Uncle Dave was going to help Tom out this week and get some tips from him about making electronic music. There were no band rehearsals because the car guys were away, helping their folks move into a condo. They’d stored a lot of their parents’ stuff in their garage. I know, I know. I was so wrong about them.

  I was wrong about a lot of things. I am no detective, really. But I do have a very active imagination. This whole thing has made me think about writing stories. Mysteries, maybe. I think
I’d be good at those.

  “Charlie? You asleep?” Tom called out in the dark.

  “Obviously not.”

  “Spy?” he asked. I could almost hear his smile.

  “Sure!” We grabbed our binoculars.

  “Car guy on the street at ten o’clock,” I whispered. “Walking with a girl. Car girl.”

  “Owl. Two o’clock!”

  “Old guy walking a little dog…stopping, sniffing…moving on.”

  We were quiet for a long time, scanning the neighborhood. It was a good neighborhood. Safe. Quiet. Lots of big trees. People who knew each other. We’d grown up here.

  “Nothing much happening.” Tom yawned.

  “Nah. But that’s kind of how I like it,” I said.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Tanya Trafford, a skilled editor who actually makes edits enjoyable, and to the team at Orca Book Publishers for their commitment to reluctant readers. I’d also like to acknowledge the generous support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for this project.

  Alison Hughes is an award-winning author of many books for children and young adults, including Hide and Shriek in the Orca Soundings collection. Alison gives frequent presentations at schools, libraries and young-writer conferences. She lives in Edmonton.

  Chapter One

  The others can’t decide if it’s better to hide or to be “It.”

  They’ve argued about it, tossed around pros and cons. On the one hand, hiding’s more fun, more creative. But on the other hand, It has the power. It is the hunter.

  Hiding is definitely more my style. I’m little, for one thing. And quiet. I can stay very still, not moving a muscle. You should hear the others when It gets blindfolded, shouts, “Go!” and starts the countdown. Crashing all over the place, banging into things, thumping down the alley. Like a herd of elephants. Honestly, if you’re It and you just listen, you can pretty much figure out exactly where they all go. That’s what I do when I’m It. Listen.